Megan stared up at him, startled by the question. Where did he want to go from here? She knew what she wanted…could he want that too? But she’d just told herself that they couldn’t.
She frowned, trying to figure out an appropriate answer and…Oh, he meant about the project!
Blinking, she slowly released the breath she’d been holding, hoping that he didn’t realize where her thoughts had gone. “The…um…we should…” she sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I think I’ve had too much wine,” she admitted.
“Good,” he smiled, leaning back in the leather chair. “Now you can tell me what upset you earlier.”
With a sigh, she leaned back against the leather, watching him as he walked over to the bar and put the wine bottle back in the fridge. When he returned, she couldn’t seem to pull her eyes away from his long, muscular legs. Goodness, he was tall! He did that sexy thing where he pulled his dress slacks up so the material didn’t tug when he sat down. Now, why she thought that was sexy, Megan had no idea. When other men did it, she barely even noticed. But when Jake did it, she wanted to slide over to him and…!
“Margaret,” she blurted before she could think better of it, and before she started thinking about him without pants.
He frowned curiously when she didn’t continue. “What about her? She’s a good programmer.”
Megan stood up with her glass of wine, moving to the windows. “It was nothing. Just…a difference of opinion.”
“I didn’t see her talking to you,” he said, and Megan realized that he was right behind her. She backed up a step when she realized that he was so close. So temptingly close!
“Careful,” he cautioned, pulling her back. “You’ll fall onto the chair if you’re not careful.”
Chair? Was there furniture in the room?
“You okay?”
“Fine,” she replied, her voice not as firm as she would have liked.
His grey eyes drifted over her features, slowly. “You look flushed. Are you coming down with something?”
Startled, Megan touched a cheek, then stepped around him. “No. It’s just the wine. I’m…fine.”
He turned with her, sliding his hands into his pockets, but his gaze continued to follow her. “So you’ve said.”
“I’d better get back to work,” she announced, setting the empty wine glass onto the coffee table. “I’ll help you clean this up.” She hurriedly closed up the boxes.
“Tom will take care of it, Megan.”
“It’s okay,” she said and sped up the process, wanting to get out of Jake’s office before she did something stupid. Like throw herself into his arms. Yeah, that might be nice. Incredibly nice! She remembered how it felt to have her breasts pressed against his hard chest and she imagined that his chest was even more firm and muscular now. She glanced over at him, her eyes hungrily searching for and finding his chest. Unfortunately, she stopped paying attention to the food boxes and she knocked one over. Thankfully, it was easily fixable and wasn’t one filled with sticky sauces. “Sorry,” she muttered and wiped up the mess. Dumping all of the boxes back into the bag, she carried it over to the fridge. “I’ll just put this in here for now. You’ll have more for dinner, I guess.”
When she turned around, she found him leaning back against the back of the sofa, watching her. His eyes were narrowed, assessing her movements. “I’m going to find out your secret, Megan. You know that, right?”
Goodness, he was so incredibly handsome!
Forcing a smile, she shook her head. “Jake, I don’t have secrets,” she said, and in a way, that was true. Well, that one secret but…! “I’m an open book. I just want to get this project done. It’s…” she looked down, trying to hide the urgency that she felt every time she thought about the project, “…important to me.”
Jake watched as she hurried from the office.
Something wasn’t right. Megan had been nervous when he’d asked about her past. She wouldn’t tell him what had upset her earlier today. And the way she’d looked at him…the familiar hunger in her eyes…! It was as if the intervening years hadn’t happened. They were back in his old apartment at MIT and she….
“Hell!” He pushed away from the table and walked over to his desk. “Tom!”
His assistant appeared in the doorway, pen and notebook at the ready. “Yes, sir?”
“I need Martin in my office. Now!”
Tom nodded, scribbling away. “I’m on it.” And he vanished. Five minutes later, Martin Cohen, the chief of security for JJH Technologies, walked into Jake’s office. “What’s up, boss?” he asked. Martin was a tall, lanky man that looked calmer and more complacent than he really was. The man was ex-special forces and had eyes that seemed able to see through walls.
Jake rubbed his forehead, cursing himself for what he was about to do. But…it was the right plan of action for the business, he thought. Yes, it was right for business, but was it the right thing to do morally? Deciding that he didn’t have a choice, he sighed and turned back to face his head of security.
“I need a background check on Megan Carmichael.”
The man didn’t even blink. “We already did that before the contracts were signed.” Martin’s eyes narrowed, almost as if he could read Jake’s mind and answered his own question. “But you need me to go deeper.”
Jake mentally cursed himself. “Yes. Deeper.”
“Is there a problem?”
How to answer that? “Not a problem so much as a mystery.”
Martin nodded again. “How deep?”
Jake laughed. “Nothing illegal,” he assured Martin who nodded. “Just…find out what…” he stopped, something occurring to him. He pulled her resume out of the file, quickly skimming through it. “Find out what was going on in her life before she started her own consulting company.” There was a gap of a couple of years on her resume that he hadn’t noticed before. Why the hell hadn’t he noticed that?
“Consider it done,” Martin assured Jake and left the office.
Jake barely heard him leave, already wondering what she’d been doing. Had she just taken a gap year, or years? Traveled around Europe? Or some other place? Megan was the kind of woman who would join the Peace Corps for two years and enjoy every moment of providing help to people who needed it. But something like that would be on her resume. The missing years were just…blank. A mystery.
Jake loved mysteries! He’d never thought he’d have to discover the mystery behind Megan’s beautiful eyes though. She’d always been so open. Refreshingly honest.
Until she’d left him.
He stared blankly out the window of his office as he thought back to the day he’d discovered her note. Actually, the days leading up to her disappearance were more interesting, he realized. Years ago, he’d been too furious at her disappearance to even think about it. But now that he allowed himself to think back, something had been bothering her right before she’d disappeared. She’d gone home for the weekend…and when she’d returned to school…
Shaking his head, he leaned his hands against the window, forcing himself to remember. No, even before that trip home, she hadn’t been herself. He’d wondered if she’d been sick, or maybe even pregnant since she’d been tired all the time. He clearly remembered wondering if she was pregnant, of the intense joy he’d felt at the idea of having a baby with Megan. She’d been so young and it wouldn’t have been what they’d planned, but he would have loved to marry her and start a family. But throughout their relationship, they had been extremely careful to avoid that possibility.
But…
A moment later, he banished the pregnancy explanation. She’d had her period right before she’d left to go home that last time. He remembered because she’d never have sex during her period. So when it was over…he’d been without her for a whole damn week and had been ravenous for her. And her for him.
Okay, it wasn’t a pregnancy. So what else? Had she been sick? Was he was making more out of her changed mood than he should? Or ha
d something happened to her parents? He sent a text message to Martin, telling him to check on her parents as well. If they’d been sick, she would have worried about them. That would explain the far-away look he’d seen in her eyes when she thought he wasn’t watching.
What the hell had happened? And why the hell hadn’t he tried to find out before now? Why was he only now starting to question her disappearance?!
Because he’d been too hurt after she’d left him. And he’d convinced himself that, if she wanted to leave, then to hell with her. He’d pushed her out of his mind, never allowing himself to question it. He’d just accepted.
What an ass!
Now he was even more determined to find out what had caused her to leave. Maybe she’d found someone new. But…no. He didn’t believe that. Not with the way she’d smiled at him. And the sex had only gotten better. She hadn’t wanted a younger guy either. Too many times, he’d caught her sneering at the antics of the younger men in her classes. She’d thought no one was looking, but he’d always been looking. He’d loved…He loved looking at Megan.
Yeah, that was present tense, he realized. Rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, he impatiently muttered a curse. What the hell was he doing? Jackson would…! No, Jake couldn’t say anything to his brother. Jake knew where his twin stood on the issue of Megan. And to be honest, Jake had been a mess after Megan left him. He’d been angry and silent, fuming with fury. Jackson had stepped in and taken the brunt of Jake’s fury all those years ago, eventually getting Jake to talk. But…
Was he really willing to step into that kind of mess with Megan? Again?
Jake stared out of the window, blind to the beauty of the city’s skyline. He could only see Megan.
Chapter 5
A week later, Jake muttered a curse as he surveyed the code that had been built that day. It was good, but there were several glitches. Something wasn’t right. He pulled up the code recorder, looking for who had worked this particular section. Joseph? That didn’t make sense. He wasn’t even assigned to that aspect of the project. Why would he log in code for that functionality?
Leaning back in his chair, he considered what to do. Normally, he would hand this off to one of his business managers, who would delegate the issue to a project manager. Hell, normally, he wouldn’t even be involved in reviewing code, much less working as a project manager. And if Jackson teased him one more time about doing it for this project, his dear brother was going to find himself in a world of hurt, regardless of their sister’s ban on fighting.
But that was all for another time. Right now, he needed to understand why Joseph had worked code in the wrong area, outside of his expertise, and who had authorized it.
Pulling out his phone, he dialed a number that was already in his contacts, although why the hell he’d entered Megan’s new number into his cell phone, he hadn’t a clue. Nor was he going to delve into his motives too closely. Not until he had more information. For the past week, they’d been working hard, maintaining a truce, but that truce was only good if they both kept their distance.
He watched her though. Perhaps a bit too intently, but he didn’t give a damn. She was a beautiful woman, although too thin. And she looked fragile. But, other than her weight loss, she was still the confident, brilliant mixture of innocence and experience that had drawn him to her that first time he’d seen her through the window of the coffee shop.
Unfortunately, she didn’t answer his call. She’d gone home about an hour ago, for the first time leaving with the rest of the team. Dialing again, he waited, thinking that perhaps she was in the shower or something. But still, his call eventually went to voice mail.
Ending the call, he pushed away from the computer, locked everything up with his personal passcode, and left the lab. Since it was Friday night, he was the last to leave. He’d actually sent everyone home early today, since most of them had already worked about seventy hours this week – well over the amount of time they should be spending on a project, no matter how important it was to the world. Families were important too. That was something he’d learned from his parents, who were ambitious and powerful people in the banking industry. His father owned one of the largest privately owned banks in the country but he was home for dinner almost every night. He traveled a great deal, but whenever possible, his family traveled with him, simply because he preferred to have everyone around and his mother didn’t like being without him.
Driving over to Megan’s house, he toyed with several ideas, trying to come up with a legitimate reason for why Joseph would be entering code in the wrong area. But try as he might, he couldn’t explain it.
There was light coming out of the windows of the small house where Megan lived. After reviewing an updated report from Martin, Jake knew that she was only renting the place. She’d never owned a house herself, although her mother and father were still living in the house she’d grown up in. They had two mortgages on the house, but so far, Tom hadn’t found out where the money had gone, why they’d needed two mortgages.
Had one of her parents been a gambler? Maybe mortgaged their house to pay for Megan’s tuition at MIT?
All good questions. And he didn’t have answers. Yet.
“Yet” being the operative word. He would eventually figure out what was going on with Megan.
He had to.
As soon as he stepped out of his car, he heard something. Music? He looked around at the neighbors, but they were too far away. Looking back, he realized that the muffled sound was coming from Megan’s small, cottage-style home. Was that music? It must be loud if he could hear it out here in the driveway! What the hell was going on? Every room was lit up and music was playing. Was she having a party?
He walked up to the front door and knocked, but there was no answer. Country music? The song was by Garth Brooks! She’d never listened to country before. He’d introduced her to country a while ago, along with jazz and a couple other genres. Before, she’d been exclusively a top 40s pop fan. So what the hell was going on? Curiouser and curiouser, he thought.
Turning the knob, he realized that she hadn’t locked her front door. All the more reason to think she was having a party and, for some reason, it irritated him that she hadn’t invited him.
Unless it was a party for two.
The possibility made his gut burn with fury as he stepped inside. Not really sure what he was going to do, but determined to find out what was going on in Megan’s life.
As soon as he stepped into the house, he realized that no one else was around, at least not in her small living room. Megan was singing from somewhere else in the house. Badly!
Moving deeper into the house, he looked around, trying to find the man who had dared to enter Megan’s life. A man that wasn’t him. Yeah, he knew that he had no right to her. That he was just an acquaintance now. But thinking about the looks she’d sent his way over the past week, and the longing he’d seen in her eyes, he was determined to find out what was going on.
When he stepped into the family room, he saw her. He simply stood there for a long moment, savoring the view of Megan in bare feet and a short, sassy sundress, dancing, swinging her hips, and singing along to Garth Brooks at the top of her lungs as she cut something up and tossed it into a salad bowl. She was having a good time…all alone!
Images of other things she might be doing alone tonight flashed through his mind and his body hardened, wanting to see her do those other things.
“Megan,” he called out.
She continued singing, even belting out the song about friends in low places, and he chuckled when she sang “low places” because she couldn’t drop low enough to hit that octave. She was definitely a soprano.
“Megan!” he called louder.
Still nothing. She was onto ivory towers and stealing champagne.
Moving closer, he stepped into her line of sight and called out again.
That definitely got a reaction. She shrieked and the salad bowl she’d been carrying flew into the air
. Lettuce, tomatoes, olives, and several other vegetables scattered all over the counter and the floor. He reached out and caught her as she slipped on the spilled salad, his arms wrapping around her waist.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, thanks to you. But my dinner isn’t.”
He steadied her, keeping his hands on her waist until she found her balance. And also because he wanted to touch her. Jake let his hands linger on her slender waist. It felt good to touch her again, to feel the supple strength of her muscles under his fingertips.
He noticed she’d washed her face and changed her clothes after arriving home. He could see her adorable freckles across her nose more clearly now, which he liked. Her long, dark lashes fluttered and, as he stared, color swept into her cheeks. “Yes, I agree your dinner is in shambles,” he replied, his voice deeper than normal. His fingers tightened around her waist, not wanting to let her go.
“Yes.” She blinked and he felt her fingers on his arms. He waited for her to push his hands away, but when she continued to stand there, he stepped closer.
“Were you very hungry?” The tension thickened in the air. He took a deep breath, breathing in the scent of her. Did she feel it too?
“Yes,” she whispered and her eyes dropped to his mouth. “Starving.”
He felt the same way. Slowly, he lowered his head, telling himself that he’d stop if she pulled away. He wanted a kiss. Just a simple kiss. Nothing more. A kiss was innocent enough. A kiss wouldn’t hurt anything.
Jake pressed his lips to hers. Megan tilted her head back, her mouth softening as she kissed him back.
She didn’t pull away. Just the opposite in fact. She leaned into him as if she were waiting for him to kiss her again. And he wanted more. He wanted to kiss her more than he wanted his next breath.
He hesitated, giving her the opportunity to pull away. But she didn’t. In fact, her fingers tightened, pulling him against her. He took that as an invitation and kissed her again, reveling in the feeling of her lips against his.
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